Speaking in front of leading LGBTQ advocates, lawmakers and celebrities on Wednesday, Vice President Kamala Harris criticized Republican lawmakers behind the historic wave of anti-LGBTQ state bills introduced across the country in recent years.
“One of the strengths of our nation has been our fight for progress,” Harris said at an LGBTQ Pride event held at his Washington residence. “A measure of progress is the expansion of rights, not the restriction of rights.”
However, he told the crowd, “what we are up against right now” are “the so-called leaders, these extremists who are trying to make an abrupt retreat.”
“But we’re not going to have it. Not under our watch,” she said.
More than 490 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced in state legislatures across the country this year and an estimated 77 have become law, according to a tally by the American Civil Liberties Union. Republican lawmakers have successfully passed laws to restrict education on LGBTQ issues, restrict some drag performances, and ban transition-related health care for minors, among other provisions.
Some of the laws enacted, including an anti-dragging measure in Tennessee and an Arkansas law that banned transitional care for the state’s minors, have recently been ruled unconstitutional in court. However, many of the measures enacted this year are still in place.
Harris took particular aim at Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law, which prohibits the teaching of sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten through eighth grade in public and charter schools. An original form of the law prohibited instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade before it was expanded last month.
“Fundamental and foundational principles are at stake, which are rooted in liberty and equality,” Harris said. “We are prepared, each one of us, because of our love of country, to stand up proudly, and with pride, to fight for what we know is right.”
The vice president’s comments coincide with an increase in threats and attacks of violence directed at LGBTQ Americans.
There have been more than 350 incidents of hate and anti-LGBTQ extremism in the US over an 11-month period beginning in June 2022, according to a reportPosted last week by the Anti-Defamation League and the LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD, which co-sponsored the event at the vice president’s home. A report released last week by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a nonprofit organization that studies extremism, found that there were more than 200 instances of protests, threats and acts of violence targeting drag events and drag performers, who has deep ties to the queer movement. community: from June 1, 2022 to May 20.
Faced with anti-LGBTQ legislation and threats of violence toward gay and trans Americans, the Biden administration has taken several steps to push back.
During Pride Month last year, President Joe Biden signed an executive order directing federal agencies to expand access to transition-related care and increase LGBTQ inclusion in American schools. The order also restricted funding for the discredited practice of “conversion therapy.”
Biden also signed legislation in December to codify federal protections for same-sex marriages, and his administration has consistently urged Congress to pass the Equality Act, legislation that would federally outlaw discrimination against LGBTQ Americans.
Among the guests at Wednesday’s Pride event was White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, the first openly gay person to serve as a presidential spokesperson. In an interview with NBC News, Jean-Pierre acknowledged that the LGBTQ community has “come a long way” in recent years, but she said, “There’s still a lot of work to be done.” She then sent a message to transgender youth, who have been hit particularly hard by the wave of LGBTQ-focused state bills.
“You are exactly who you need to be,” he said. “We’ve got your back, you’re enough, and this is an administration that will do everything it can to fight for you.”
“RuPaul’s Drag Race” winner Sasha Colby, who hosted Wednesday’s event, also shared a message of support for transgender youth, saying their joy and success as a transgender person “is not just an exception.”
“All the things that I thought I might even be ashamed of or the things that I didn’t want people to know about, it’s actually your power,” Colby told NBC News. “Actually, it’s what will unlock your courage.”
Health Assistant Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine, the nation’s top transgender official, had a hopeful outlook, telling NBC News that she believes this Pride Month is “a turning point.”
“I feel a new spirit this Pride,” he said. “I feel very hopeful, positive and optimistic about the future.”
Wednesday’s Pride event came just two days after Harris made a surprise visit to New York City’s historic Stonewall Inn on Monday to mark LGBTQ Pride Month. She is the first sitting vice president to visit the site of a June 1969 uprising largely credited with being a turning point in the modern gay rights movement.
At the end of his remarks Wednesday, Harris quoted civil rights leader Coretta Scott King as saying that “the fight for civil rights must be fought and won with every generation” and declared that “pride is patriotism.”
“It’s patriotic to love our country because we believe in fundamental principles,” Harris said. “We believe in the promise of freedom, equality and justice, that is an expression of our love for our country.”
